School's in for the Summer

Off to summer school! Back in August.

Some great summer music...

What really happened on the 18th of April in '75...

There has been some controversy in the media recently over Gov. Palin's account of Paul Revere's ride. Here's what really happened...

Oval Office Plunder Summit

Source: Daily Mail

In view of the hundreds of billions of "stimulus" dollars that have disappeared into the coffers of Democratic constituencies, I don't think this is an unfair comparison.

Friedman on Collectivist Self-Praise

If anybody needs a break from jokes about Congressman Weiner, here’s a great Milton Friedman quote that I found recently. It’s from the preface that he wrote for the 1994 edition of Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom:

Many of those who profess the most individualist objectives support collectivist means without recognizing the contradiction. It is tempting to believe that social evils arise from the activities of evil men and that if only good men (like ourselves, naturally) wielded power, all would be well. That view requires only emotion and self-praise – easy to come by and satisfying as well. To understand why it is that ‘good’ men in positions of power will produce evil, while the ordinary man without power but able to engage in voluntary cooperation with his neighbors produce good, requires analysis and thought, subordinating the emotions to the rational faculty. Surely that is one answer to the perennial mystery of why collectivism, with its demonstrated record of producing tyranny and misery, is so widely regarded as superior to individualism, with its demonstrated record of producing freedom and plenty.

When Democrats Renege

An article about the 1982 budget deal, “When Reagan Raised Taxes” recently appeared on CNN.com. The author, Princeton History Professor Julian E. Zelizer, argued that Congress ought to pass a deficit reduction package that includes both spending cuts and tax increases. To conservative Republicans who support the former but oppose the latter, Professor Zelizer points out that even their patron saint, Ronald Reagan, once made a deal of this nature.

It is interesting to read what Reagan himself had to say about this deal. In his memoir he wrote, “To win congressional approval of additional spending cuts and show the financial community we were serious about reducing the deficit, I made a deal with the Congressional Democrats in 1982, agreeing to support a limited loophole-closing tax increase to raise more than $98.3 billion over three years in return for their agreement to cut spending by $280 billion during the same period; later the Democrats reneged on their pledge and we never got those cuts.”

IMHO, if Professor Zelizer wants the GOP to agree to a tax increase, it would be better if he did not bring up the events of 1982. Reminding Republicans that Democrats cannot be trusted is not an effective way to bring them to the negotiating table.